


All Them Aliens

by Ray_Writes



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode Fix-It: s04e13 Journey's End, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 01:32:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15719181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ray_Writes/pseuds/Ray_Writes
Summary: An old family secret might just mean the difference in saving the Most Important Woman in the Universe.





	All Them Aliens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [phoebemaybe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoebemaybe/gifts).



> This was a birthday present/idea inspired by discussions with the absolutely lovely Phoebe! It's a bit late, I'm afraid, but nevertheless I hope you and all the rest enjoy!

For as long as he could remember, Wilfred had looked to the stars. There was just something so fascinating about them hanging in the sky just out of reach. He read books and learned the names of constellations, planets, anything. By the age of ten, he’d saved up enough money to buy his very first telescope. It had been a little thing, probably not much better than looking with the eyes, but Wilfred had been immensely proud of it all the same.

Little Wilf had nearly had his telescope sooner, because he had worked out a deal with a chap down at the antique shop for a few quid in exchange for a gold pocket watch his parents had impressed upon him at a very young age.

His father had put a stop to that nonsense, though.

“You’ve got to promise me you’ll keep this. It’s important, Wilfred.”

“But how can it be important?” Wilf had laughed a little and dangled it by the chain. “It’s broken!”

“Because it’s your family’s. And that makes it part of you. A telescope won’t go away anytime soon, but this watch has a value that can’t hope to match.”

Wilfred had nodded seriously even if he hadn’t understood very well at the time what that meant. He’d spent a few days playing around with the watch but it soon enough lost his interest. Dutifully, he’d tucked it away in a box and gone on earning his money for the telescope he’d wanted.

He’d had dreams of going up there in space, exploring and finding unimaginable creatures, coming home to be knighted by the king. But when he’d been young, those dreams had seemed impossible. No one had known then that before the century was over they’d put a man on the moon!

So he’d left those dreams behind in childhood as most did and focused his efforts on a life on Earth. His want to serve and to travel had led him to the army, which had led him to a lovely nurse named Eileen. They’d promised themselves to each other and planned to marry once they returned home.

Wilf very nearly hadn’t made it. A scare with a bullet that had hit his supplies pack ought to have been the end of him. All the lads had said it had to have been a miracle. It was only when he’d emptied the pack of its contents that Wilfred had realized what had happened; his old pocket watch had stopped the bullet. He’d only brought it along in memory of his recently passed father, and had felt guilty and grateful in turns as he’d checked it over for damage.

Surprisingly, all he had found was the tiniest of cracks, only noticeable when he’d run a finger slowly over the smooth surface of the back.

Over the remaining weeks of his enlistment, he’d kept a closer eye on the old thing. It had been so odd, but whenever he’d held it up to his ear, like hearing the ocean in a seashell. There had been dreams, too, dreams of a war far more terrible than anything he’d ever experienced where metallic voices screeched and millions cried out. And sometimes when he’d woken in the dark he’d thought he could see a light shining out of the crack of the pocket watch.

Wilfred had put the watch away again, this time in the eaves storage of his new home. He’d found himself so caught up in Eileen and their daughter Sylvia that he’d clean forgotten all about it until his mum had fallen ill years later.

She had been on her deathbed when he had finally learned the secret his parents had kept all these years.

“My son.” She’d reached up to touch his face, and only Eileen’s hand in his had kept him from crumpling. “Oh, I was so lucky.”

“I think I got the better end of that deal, mum.”

She’d given a feeble shake of her head. “Doctors said I couldn’t...we’d given up hope, your father and I. And then they came with you.”

He’d blinked in shock. “Eh? What?”

“Said they couldn’t keep you,” his mum had mumbled. “Too dangerous. Wanted you to have a good home.”

“Who did? I mean, you’re not making any sense!” A quick glance at Eileen had shown his wife had been as at a loss as he.

“Told us all we had to do—” His mother had broken off to cough weakly. “—was keep the watch. Said you needed it.”

“For what?”

She hadn’t known, and it was all she’d said on the subject. Wilfred had struggled to reconcile his grief over the mother he’d known with the parents he hadn’t. Eileen had been his sole comfort, and she never told a single person what had been said in that little room before his mother had passed.

It just hadn’t been the done thing to talk about at the time, and Sylvia’s wedding had been coming up. He hadn’t wanted to ruin it for her. Sylvia had had such ideas of what was and wasn’t proper.

Not long after the marriage of Sylvia and Geoffrey, Donna Noble had entered the world, and, much to Sylvia’s dismay, had been anything but proper.

His little granddaughter had been an absolute delight, and more like him than not with each passing day. She was a curious sort, which Sylvia hadn’t seemed to want to encourage in a girl, but Wilf hadn’t had the heart to stop her. She had gone on little expeditions all over his and Eileen’s home, reporting her findings back to them over the table at tea. There’d been the garden, the shed, the garage, all transformed into new and exciting worlds by the eyes of a child. He and Eileen had clapped at the end of each one, and Donna had flushed a deep red and beamed with pride.

One day, he had found her exploring up in the eaves storage. “Hey there, sweetheart, what have you got?”

“A hidden treasure!” She’d declared, thrusting her hand forward, the chain of the old pocket watch clenched in her little fist.

“Oh. Well, that- that’s just your grandad’s. It’s very old, so let’s just put it back.”

Donna had pouted but done as asked with no further protest. He’d thought that’d been the end of it.

But after she’d run off on a bus to Strathclyde after a row with her mum — scared them all half to death, but they’d laugh about it eventually — Wilfred had helped her unpack the little bag she’d filled with odds and ends only a child might think they’d need and had come across a familiar object.

“What’d you take this for, eh?” He’d asked, holding up the watch.

Donna had shrugged. “You said it’s yours, and I wanted something to remember you.” She’d looked right and left before leaning forward. “Sometimes it sounds like you.”

He’d given a nervous chuckle. “Tell you what. When you’re big you can have it, just like my dad gave it to me.”

Wilfred hadn’t known why he hadn’t given it to her then; he’d hardly been any older when it had been passed onto him. But he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling he ought to keep it close. And Donna’s fixation had worried him. He’d watched her carefully the next several days.

Had her eyes always had that ring of gold in them?

His fears had passed as everything did. Eileen had been getting worse and had required all his attention near the end. And as Donna had gotten older, she too had forgotten about childish fancies and whispering watches. Sylvia’s expectations had pressed on her instead, and nothing she had done seemed to please her mother.

When at last she’d met a nice man named Lance, Sylvia had been happy at last. She’d planned the wedding with gusto, Geoffrey quietly agreeing to everything. He’d been getting slower lately, though Wilfred supposed he had himself. He’d moved into their home only a few months ago. There was a nice little allotment at the top of the hill for him to place his telescope — the third one he’d yet to own.

But he’d been moved to hospital just a week before the wedding due to a bout of Spanish flu.

He’d felt so sick he’d never mustered up the energy to ask what had happened on the day of the wedding. People up and down the corridor had been exclaiming about a Christmas star and the Thames being drained with no explanation. He’d been convinced it was the aliens; they’d been having those attacks lately, Big Ben and all that. His family hadn’t believed him.

But Donna had visited the next day without a husband and with a box instead. “I thought I’d bring you some of your things. Make you feel more at home. It is Christmas.”

“You hate Christmas,” he’d reminded her.

She’d shushed him and had gone about setting things up. When she’d taken out that silly old pocket watch, Wilfred had laughed as well as he could without hacking up a lung.

“Think that’ll be yours, soon.”

Donna had shaken her head. “Not yet. Don’t you dare. You’ve still got to meet the aliens.”

“You always said that was rubbish. One thing you and your mum could agree on.”

“Yeah, well—” She’d shrugged, a funny little smile quirking her lips. “I can change my mind.”

That night, the watch had whispered and glowed again. Wilf had rolled over and chalked it up to the fever.

Yet he’d woken to a normal temperature and clear lungs for the first time in a week. The doctors couldn’t explain it at all. Sylvia had decided his miraculous recovery salvaged the otherwise wasted holiday. Of course, Wilfred had found himself wishing he could have passed on his good fortune to Geoffrey when the man had passed only months later. It really had been too soon.

They were all affected, but Wilfred felt it had been more than Geoffrey’s death that had changed Donna. She’d grown pensive and had started looking up to the stars the way he’d always done. When he’d finally asked her, she’d told him she was waiting for a man who had flown away in a funny blue box. Imagine his surprise when he’d seen the proof she hadn’t been joking!

Donna had gone off with this man of hers, the Doctor — a man Wilf himself had met and watched disappear in front of his eyes only last Christmas — and she’d returned a couple times to tell him all about the strange and amazing planets and peoples and times she had seen. His granddaughter had gotten his childhood wish, and he couldn’t have been happier. To think their world was so much more than they’d believed.

He’d begun carrying the pocket watch again, too. Wilfred still hadn’t any explanation for it. There had just been a growing feeling it was important. Whenever he’d listen carefully, it almost sounded as if it was saying  _ soon _ . He’d thought about asking Donna if the Doctor might have any clue, but the last time she’d called the alien had been in a bad way after some trip to a place called Midnight. So he’d put it off.

All this was to say, Wilfred Mott was entirely unprepared for what happened when the Daleks finally got to him.

—-

He couldn’t stay inside, not when those things were terrorizing the people of Earth. It’s what Donna and that Doctor of hers would do, and since they weren’t here, he’d have to do in the meantime.

Sylvia had followed, pleading with him to come back to the house. But he had a strategy. “Them Dalek things, they've only got one eye. A good splodge of paint, they'd be blinded.”

They were forced to watch, unable to do anything, as the monsters set fire to a family’s home the street over for refusing to comply with their orders. Sylvia tugged him back towards their street, but they ran across one of the horrid things patrolling on its own.

“ _ Halt. You will come with me _ .”  
  
Wilfred took aim. “Will I heck.”

He fired the paint gun and got a direct hint, but moments later the paint boiled right off.  
  
“ _ My vision is not impaired _ .”  
  
“I warned you, dad,” Sylvia whimpered.   
  
“ _ Hostility will not be tolerated _ ,” said the Dalek.

Louder in his ears, however, was the whispering. The same whispering he’d heard from his old watch for so many years.  _ Now _ , the voices said,  _ open it now _ .

Wilfred’s fingers fumbled in his pocket for the catch.

“ _ Exterminate. Exterminate. Exter _ —”

The head of the Dalek suddenly exploded, revealing a young, blonde woman standing behind it with a large gun. Wilfred forgot all about the watch once again.

“Do you want to swap?” He joked weakly, hefting the paint gun.

“You’re Donna Noble’s family, right? I’m Rose Tyler, and I need you.”

The three of them all went back to the house. It turned out this Rose really wanted to find the Doctor, though neither of them were much help for that. He still wasn’t able to raise Donna. Then their laptop started acting funny, and Harriet Jones the former Prime Minister appeared. A bunch of people were conversing, though they couldn’t get through. All they could do was watch as the group reached out to try and contact the Doctor and join in with their own phones to put the call through.

Only moments after Ms. Jones made her sacrifice, her static-filled screen resolved into a different image with two very familiar people in it.

“It’s Donna!” Sylvia cried.

“That’s my girl!” Wilf cheered.

They only got to see Donna on the screen for a few moments before some other voice interrupted. After that, Rose Tyler left their house to search for the Doctor and Donna. The two of them were left with little to do but wait.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me my daughter was traveling with aliens,” Sylvia said out of the blue.

“Well, would you have believed me? You said they weren’t real!”

“I’d have believed they were if I’d known I’d met one! And that’s another thing — is he safe for her? I mean, all those hoaxes and the Daleks and everything, seems all they want to do is invade us.”

“He’s not like that, he stops it all from happening. She’s perfectly safe, love. And they’re good for each other, honest. A real pair.”

Out the window, Sylvia spotted the Daleks flying away. But Wilf couldn’t settle until Donna was back home and they knew all was well. He paced, hands shoved deep in his pockets where he came upon the watch again.

Wilfred took it out. Why had he thought it wanted him to open it? It didn’t open, except that crack down the back. What did it all mean?

When the shaking started, he nearly dropped the thing as he fell over on the couch.

“What’s happening?” Sylvia shouted.

“Something good, I hope! Come on, Donna, Doctor, don’t let us down now!”

It lasted several long minutes, then everything settled once again. When Sylvia checked the telly, all the news stations were reporting they were back where they belonged in the sky. They both hugged and and laughed, delighted to know the danger had truly passed. Outside, people were setting off fireworks and shouting for joy.

Donna called then, at last.

“Sweetheart, how are you? You alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Are you alright?”

“Oh, we’re just fine.”

“Ask her when she’s coming back,” Sylvia hissed in his ear.

“Donna- Donna, your mum’s asking when you’re coming home.”

“Shouldn’t be long. Think we’ve got one more trip. You just sit tight.”

It was dark by the time they heard the pair coming up the walk. Wilfred went to meet them at the door and made out just the last of what Donna was saying. “—tell them? I might be dying, but we’re not sure?”

“Well—” The Doctor broke off as Wilfred opened the door. “Wilf! Hello again. How’s the house? Hope you didn’t lose anything too fragile in the move.” 

“What’s wrong with Donna?”

The Doctor froze, and Donna’s eyes went wide as saucers. “Nothing!” They both chirped at once.

“But I heard you, you said you might be dying.”

“Who’s dying?” Asked Sylvia from down the hall. She marched right up to the door with the rest of them.

“No one. I mean, not right now, obviously,” said Donna. “Seems like it should be alright.”

Sylvia turned accusingly to Wilf. “You said she was safe!”

“Well, erm, that’s the thing,” the Doctor interjected. “Donna saved all of us, and she’s fine, but that should be impossible.”

“What do you mean?” Sylvia demanded. “Why couldn’t she save all of us?”

They all blinked at her in shock. It was perhaps the nicest thing Wilfred had heard her say about her own daughter in years, and it looked as though Donna had no idea what to do about it.

“Of- of course she could!” The Doctor finally managed to recover. “That’s not the impossible bit. Donna does that all the time, actually.”

His granddaughter wore a pleased smile at that pronouncement, no denials or amendments to be made. Though if Wilf wasn’t mistaken, there was a light blush staining her cheeks.

Sylvia crossed her arms. “Then I don’t see the problem.”

“No, but he’s right,” said Donna after giving her head a shake. “To save everybody, I had to become a human-Time Lord metacrisis, but that should’ve killed me. They’re not supposed to exist.”

“But- but you’re alright?” Wilf asked.

“Yeah. That’s the funny bit. I am, but I shouldn’t be. We’re not sure why.” Donna shrugged. “Spaceman wanted to run tests, but I said I wanted to talk to you two first in case my mind decided to spontaneously implode—”

Sylvia looked about to exclaim something at that, but the Doctor suddenly pointed one finger straight up into the air.

“Hold on, hold on, what’s that noise?”

“What noise?” The three of them asked.

The alien strode past him and Sylvia into the house, leaving all of them to follow after. Only once he got to the sitting room, the Doctor spun back around.

“No, no, it’s coming from this direction now. Actually…” His eyes landed on Wilfred. “You haven’t got a radio or something in your pocket, have you?”

“Er, no. Just- just this,” he said, pulling out the old watch. “I hadn’t thought it was that loud. Or even making noise, cos Donna’s the only other one who’s ever...” He trailed off as the Doctor continued to stare at it. And he wasn’t the only one.

“Oh my God,” Donna breathed. “But that’s—”

“Exactly.” The Doctor took a step forward. “Wilfred, where did you get this?”

“It’s a family heirloom,” Sylvia answered for him. “Worthless with that crack down the middle on the back.”

“I’d say it’s priceless,” the Doctor countered, never taking his eyes off it.

“But if Gramps has a fob watch, then that means…” Donna couldn’t quite seem to finish.

It didn’t matter. The Doctor nodded as though he’d understood her perfectly. “Oh. Oh, blimey.” He took another step forward. “Would you mind if I looked at that, Wilfred?”

He wasn’t sure why he ought to be so nervous. “Alright.”

Both Donna and the Doctor bent over it as the alien turned it over and over in his hands.

“Ah, see, the crack. The mechanism holding in the essence was damaged — not enough to completely release it, but little by little. Wilf, when did this happen?”

“When I was in the army.”

“Before Sylvia was born?”

“Yeah, course.”

“And just what has that got to do with anything?” Sylvia asked, hands on her hips.

“It means that you’re carrying the template. Part of it anyway. Which then means  _ Donna _ has it, too.”

“That’s why I’m not dead,” his granddaughter said. “I’m not a human trying to process a Time Lord mind. I was already part both.”

“Part  _ both _ ?” Sylvia scoffed. “Oh, what sort of nonsense—”

“I think Wilfred can explain it best. Or at least he  _ will _ be able to.” The Doctor held the watch back out to him. “I need you to open this.”

“But it’s broken,” he said automatically.

“No, it isn’t. You just think it is. That’s the perception filter tricking your brain. Fight it, Wilf, and we’ll all find the truth.”

Slowly he took the watch from the alien’s outstretched hand, placed his thumb on the catch, and opened it.

A golden light shone out of it, and he blinked it shock as it rushed at him before dispersing as it made contact.

Sylvia cried out in alarm. “What have you done to my father?”

“Nothing! Well, nothing bad. Hopefully.”

“Doctor,” Donna warned.

“It’s alright,” the Doctor said, though he’d placed a hand on Donna’s arm and shifted slightly in front of her. “Can’t be the worst case scenario. Just let him get his bearings.”

“I- I think I’m alright, actually,” he said. A bit warm, maybe. Less tired. That was a new one in his late years. But he wasn’t confused in the head about where he was or any of that.

“Wilfred?” The Doctor asked. “ _ Are _ you Wilfred?”

“Well, I’d be worried if I wasn’t, wouldn’t I be?” He asked with a chuckle.

“You don’t suddenly have a lifetime’s worth of new memories back? No realization that you go by a completely different name and come from a totally different planet?”

“Er, no. Sorry.”

“Oh.” The Doctor’s face fell.

“But it’s his watch,” Donna insisted. “I mean it went into him, it didn’t fly off somewhere.”

The Doctor scratched at the back of his head for a moment before his eyes lit up again. “Hold on. Sylvia, you said this was a family heirloom.”

“Well, that’s what dad always said—”

“No, no, I’m not doubting you. But Wilfred, this was yours all along. It wasn’t your father’s, or his father’s and so on.”

“Er, no. That’s, uh, that’s the thing. I’m not really a Mott.”

Donna’s mouth fell open, and Sylvia squawked, “ _ What _ ?”

“They told me I was given up by my birth parents. Wasn’t safe for them to keep me or some such. And- and the watch was something of theirs they asked my folks to hang onto for me. That was the one thing they wanted. I never knew a thing more about them.”

“You never said,” Donna said, not quite an accusation.

Wilf shuffled his feet on the carpet. “Well, it just didn’t seem important. It was shameful in those days, not being able to have your own children, and I didn’t want anyone thinking badly of your great-gran. She was still my mother, raised me and all.”

There was a heavy silence for a long moment.

Then the Doctor abruptly broke it. “Oh!  _ Oh _ ! That’s why you haven’t remembered anything! You were too young to have those memories!”

“What do you mean?” Donna asked.

“Well, it’s just like Wilfred says. His biological parents decided it wasn’t safe to raise him back home — on Gallifrey. Course it’s not safe, there was a war on. So, they chameleon arch their infant to hide him from the Daleks, pick out a nice set of human parents to look after him, and leave the watch containing his true Time Lord essence—”

“—so they can come back and get him when the war’s over!” Donna continued, grabbing the Doctor’s hands in her excitement. “But they never did, so Gramps grows up thinking he’s human and never  _ dreaming _ there was a whole other life out there waiting for him — he’s like Superman!”

“Yeah! Actually, yes, that is rather like Superman, isn’t it?” The Doctor’s face scrunched up. “Hold on, does that make me Zod?”

“How should I know? I don’t actually read them.” Donna’s head tilted to the side as she asked, “Why’d they pick Great Britain in the twentieth century to plop him down in, though? We weren’t exactly short on wars.”

“Can’t really ask them at the moment.”

They both pulled a face.

“ _ Right _ . Anyway—”

“Now just wait one minute!” Sylvia finally shouted over them both. “What do you mean dad ‘thinks’ he’s human? He is, isn’t- isn’t he?” She looked at him with wide eyes. “Dad?”

“Well, I don’t know, love,” he admitted. “I mean, if Donna and the Doctor think I’m not, well then, they’ve got to have a reason, don’t they?”

“We can run some tests on the TARDIS just to be sure. But it’s the only explanation that makes sense, particularly with Donna’s lack of dying from a human-Time Lord biological metacrisis.”

“But if Donna was already — I mean, that’d mean—” Sylvia looked to be having great trouble articulating her fear. She finally screwed up her features and blurted, “Are you saying  _ I’m _ an alien?”

The Doctor exchanged a careful look with Donna. “If we’re talking ‘foreign to Earth’, then no. You were still born here, I presume. But if you meant in the ‘different species to human’ sense, then yes. Partly. You’re more human than not.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Donna would have been even  _ more _ human, unless she inherited more of yours and Wilf’s genes than Geoffrey’s side, but probably the metacrisis has further altered her DNA in a more Time Lord direction.”

“And that means she’s safe?” Wilfred asked.

“Oh yes! Better than safe!” The pair grinned at each other. “Donna’s got a whole Time Lord life to live — and so do you, Wilf,” he added, looking away from Wilfred’s granddaughter.

“Really? Well.” He looked down at himself. Nothing seemed all that different, but then the Doctor didn’t look too different from them either. Them being humans, which he wasn’t anymore. A laugh burst from him at the thought.

“And what’s so funny?” Asked Donna, though she was smiling indulgently at him.

“All that time you two were telling me there couldn’t be any aliens out there, and I had the bleedin’ proof all along!”

Sylvia groaned. “I need a lie down.” She stomped off to the stairs.

“Sylvia the Time Lord. Oh blimey,” the Doctor muttered.

“Never mind her. She’ll manage.” Donna came forward and hugged him. “We’ll have to get you up there to see the stars yourself. You’ve always belonged there, Gramps.”

“Yeah, guess it was a gut feeling — if Time Lords get those.” He looked to the Doctor. “You’ll, uh, have to show an old man the ropes on this stuff.”

The Time Lord — one of a few in the room, now, no longer solitary — grinned broadly and reached to clasp his hand. “Wilfred, I’d be happy to.”


End file.
